I just returned from watching The Dark Knight. Trust me – believe in all the hype surround this movie. Christopher Nolan, the director, has once again raised the bar for superhero movie sequel to an even higher standard previously set by X-Men 2. And believe in the late Heath Ledger’s performance as The Joker. It’s true in every word.
The Dark Knight has one advantage over Batman Begins that every major character had already been introduced in Batman Begins. So when The Dark Knight begins, there’s no stopping this sheer force of high velocity superhero sequel. Think of the theory of “3 acts” play, if you will. Usually we would get all the rush in one of the act. For The Dark Knight, everything was a big rush of high voltage action scenes. This time around, Nolan knows how to handle all the action scenes better than what he did in Batman Begins where in some shots were a little too fast for audiences to follow.
In terms of superhero franchise, I thought that X-Men 2 already set the bar high enough but Nolan’s The Dark Knight just raise the very bar even higher. Jon Favreau’s Iron Man may have to do more homeworks on how to create Iron Man sequel that at least be on the same level as X-Men 2 or The Dark Knight. If you think about it, both Iron Man and Batman Begins start off on almost the same ground. Both introduce on how our protagonists come to their character essence (donning an iron armor and becoming Gotham’s champion of justice respectively) and pave ways for sequels. The Dark Knight already establishes on how superhero sequel movies should be. We’ll have to see what Favreau has up in his sleeves when it comes to Iron Man 2.
This is not your typical superhero sequel. It’s a connecting story from Batman Begins that moves like a tornado. The future is bright for this Caped Crusader franchise. The questions are how Nolan (I assume that Nolan is still going to be the director) is going to raise a very high bar set by The Dark Knight for the next Batman sequel and what direction Nolan is going to take on the next Batman installment.
The Dark Knight
